Rice production in Myanmar
Recent global economic policies have led to increasing international cooperation with NGOs and other organisations, that have provided financial and technological assistance to rice farmers.
[4][5] In order to increase exports to Europe, the British government introduced schemes to improve transportation systems through the migration of people to the Lower Myanmar region.
[8] Primarily rice is grown in across the Ayeyarwady, Bago and Yangon delta regions due to the major river system running across.
[9] However, the dry and mountainous zones such as Mandalay, Sagaing and Magway as well as coastal regions of Mon and Rakhine States also play a minor role in rice production.
[6][11] A study found that high fertilizer prices, shortages of irrigated water and the educational level of farmers was hindering rice production growth.
They can be classified based on time of yield: Throughout history, the government of Myanmar has been heavily involved in creating policies to aid rice production.
These were: In 1995, Myanmar became a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) two years later.
Market-oriented policies were adopted by the government as a form of embracing economic globalization, the state relinquished control mechanisms over production and marketing in agriculture (the rice industry in this instance).
[8] As a result of the SLORC incentives, rice export numbers reached 1.8 million tons in 2015/16, with China being the major importing partner (part of the ASEAN + 3 group).
[11] This agreement came to fruition due to large numbers of rice smuggling instances that caused exports from Myanmar to decrease exponentially.
[14] At the end of 2013, members of the president's cabinet, including the Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation, engaged in dialogue with IRRI in relation to developing a stronger partnership in rice research.
[15] The following year, the government targeted the education of farmers by holding learning alliance meetings, which led to knowledge new harvesting technologies and a reduction of losses.
[15] Finally, in 2016 these partnerships eventually resulted in the 12-step economic policy released by the government of Myanmar, one of the main goals being to "support the formation of crops, livestock and fisheries producer groups..."[16]
